Now that we have a new integrated behavioral health care model in Maricopa County, we’ve set our sights on implementing a similar integrated care model in the rest of the state. Our Procurement Team issued the Greater Arizona Behavioral Health RFP last week - which sets the course for integrating behavioral health and physical health for [...]
Most of you know that we’ve reached a final agreement with the Plaintiffs in the 32 year-old Arnold vs. Sarn lawsuit. We expect to have a dismissal hearing later this year- which will officially end the Arnold lawsuit. We got some other good news on a different behavioral health case last week. Last Friday marked the [...]
Today we published Arizona’s first ever comprehensive State Health Assessment. The objective of the State Health Assessment is to give Arizona’s public health and health care systems a clear tool to help drive future decision-making and resource allocation as we collectively design and implement evidence-based interventions to improve health and wellness outcomes across Arizona. The [...]
Publication of Arizona’s very first State Health Assessment is just around the corner The 2013 Arizona State Health Assessment will use AZ quantitative and qualitative data to assess the public health status of the state. The end product will be a comprehensive summary of the 15 leading health issues that have the greatest impact in Arizona. [...]
Our Behavioral Health Services team just finished and published our FY 12 Annual Report. The new report identifies the number of clients served by service area, funding category and program; and includes programmatic financial reports of revenues, expenditures and administrative costs. In it, you'll see that we received a total of about $1.46B in funding for FY 2012 for behavioral health services. Our Agency [...]
This is one to remember. SBIRT is an acronym for a behavioral health intervention that stands for “Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment”. The technical definition is “ … a comprehensive, integrated, public health approach to the delivery of early intervention and treatment services for persons with substance use disorders…” A more metaphorical (is that [...]
Helping fight hunger in our state is a worthy investment of anyone’s time. One in four children struggle with hunger in our state according the Arizona Association of Food Banks. To do their part… food banks in our state supply more than 11 million pounds of food every month. But the food banks rely on [...]
The future health insurance exchange plans (as well as most other commercially available plans) will need to offer a standardized (state-specific) Essential Benefit Package once the Affordable Care Act kicks in on 1/1/14. There are 10 key service categories that future plans will need to cover- including behavioral health services. States were responsible for picking [...]
We all need to take care of both our physical and behavioral health needs in order to be healthy. The mind and body aren't separated- and neither should the health-care delivery system- especially for folks with a serious mental illness. Folks with a serious mental illness die more than 25 years earlier than the general [...]
The Acting Deputy Director of Behavioral Health gives a great overview of the Division and its mission in his blog today. Take a look and bookmark the site for future news.
